Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Here’s
the fact. Every single person in your organisation is going to leave.

Every.
Single. One.

They’re
going to resign. Or retire. Or win the Lottery and buy an island in Fiji.

There’s
nothing you can do about it.

Except
give them a few more reasons to stay for a little bit longer. But eventually?
Ta ta!

And
why not? This isn’t a marriage, there’s no solemn vows of forever-ness. This is
an exchange of my skills and time for your money.

And
when I don’t want that anymore, I’ll leave.

So
here’s the thing. Why should that be a surprise? Why do organisations behave as
though there’s some kind of unexpected betrayal? Why are there big gaps in
succession planning? Why haven’t key skills been passed on?

A
few tips: see ourblogon the martial arts principle of ‘giving service’ for a means to
embed knowledge transfer inside your business.

And do you ‘bring the exit
interview forward’? Do you actively work on getting a sense of flight risk and how to
delay it? What happens inside your business that recognises that we’re all
going to leave?